The Crimes Unto Us
by Karissaaa
Summary: Henryk Szpilman's POV as he and and Halina arrive back in Warsaw after the war. Recollections of the camps shadow their new lives.
1. Streets of Warsaw

When we arrived back in Warsaw, the city lay before us in ruins. We had been taken back there by car and train – however the comfy velvet cushions were exactly the opposite of the heavily chlorinated wooden trucks that deported us before. Halina's hand was sweaty and small, but she gripped onto my own with a strength that no German could break. She gasped at the scene that was in front of us as soon as we stepped out of the carriage, and even I could not stop myself from opening my mouth wide in horror. Papa had always told me to be strong and never, ever show emotion – I was **male** after all – but even after the horrors we had been through, it shocked me. Our home was…well, gone. There was nothing left. We had nowhere to go.

We couldn't move from where we were standing; we were absolutely immobilised. Warsaw - oh so beautiful Warsaw - was destroyed. It was like a nightmare. No, it **was** a nightmare. Everything was either crushed or spread across the streets and districts, not un-similar to the many bodies that had been murdered and left to decompose in the camps. We'd seen our share of them, for sure. Bodies of our friends were laid in the dirt and sand; mouth agape, eyes wide, clothes muddy and torn. It made me shake with fear even thinking about it. I glanced to my right, still taking in the whole…emptiness spread all around us. Halina was quietly sobbing. So she should be. We had lost everything. Our clothes, our possessions, our friends, our family, and now our home. We would have to make a life from all this. We would have to shape and form houses and families out of the grime, to replace the one we had lost. But how could we do that? How could we just make new lives? How?

I urged Halina to walk on, despite her desperate attempts to stay where we had been standing. Her pleas fell on deaf ears – and I mean that literally; listening to countless shots and bombs for three years straight does have its effects. Eventually I just pulled her forward and placed my arm around her. Her untameable black hair was still as sleek as ever, shielding her from so many monstrosities. It wound its way around my arm and hand, like the Germans had wound their way between us; to split us up, to hurt us, to annihilate us. I would never let go of her again. I had done that too easily before, and I had paid the price. So had she.

We walked forward in silence; neither of us had any words to describe how we felt. There isn't a big enough vocabulary. It was strange really: back in the camps the Germans always told us to just shut up and work, but we always went against that. Talking was our medicine; our remedy, and it soothed us well. But now; now we could talk all we wanted, and we didn't. We couldn't. After a while of stepping over countless pieces of rubble and scuffing our shoes that had done us so brilliantly, having brought us through the camps and all, I cleared my throat and spoke swiftly, knowing that sound would just break this eerie but somewhat peaceful atmosphere.

"So…where do you want to go first?" Halina just shrugged. I don't blame her. It was a stupid question. Trust me to be so dumb. 'Where do you want to go first'? Ha, that was absurd. I should've said something like: 'Are you ok?' or 'We'll be alright'. Not a question about where she wanted to go. I have always been senseless like that. I remember I once told a joke about Dr Razjeia – a doctor in Warsaw who had died after some Germans came into where he was doing an operation and shot him. After I had said it, there was a raid outside our window. I felt so utterly sorry. So utterly useless. Mama told me it wasn't my fault – yelled at me in fact – but I still blamed myself. Still do, to this day.

We walked on, again in silence. Our feet pummelled the earth; tap tap, tap tap. It sounded like the trains had done, with the exception of the throaty groan of the carriages as they moved. I had held Halina then, in the boxes that were taking us to our doom. I held her ever-so-tightly. I buried my head in her soft hair – it was still immaculate then. They had let us clean ourselves up a little bit, before we were deported. We didn't know why. If I could see my past self now, I'd scream at him. I'd scream and yell and shout and beg him to fight back. I didn't fight, when I could have done. I regret that. I regret it with all my heart.

Our steps were like heartbeats. Regular. Never stopping. Not for us.


	2. Positively Sliska Street

How could we make our lives from nothing? But how could we do anything apart from that? For there really was nothing left in our magnificent, wonderful Warsaw –no; the barren wasteland painted before us was no longer magnificent and wonderful. Of course it wasn't! It had been, but then it was torn and battered and bruised and bombed and eventually all that was left in this damn, shit place that had once radiated absolute beauty, so much so that your skin would tingle and throb with pride that you lived there; that you were a part of it all – all that was left…was us.

One day in the future, Halina and I would probably look back on this day, and laugh, and state that we were totally stupid. We'd probably say that there were so many options open to us back then; so many people who could have helped us, and guided us. But where would we be when we were saying that? On the streets like so many before us – echoing the likes of Rubenstein and that old woman with the feathered hat who called painfully after her deceased husband, Itsaak Szerman? Or in an asylum perhaps? Mind you, we could probably get a ticket for an asylum as quick as anything, if we ever told anyone about the horrors we had seen and experienced. Nobody would believe us when we regaled tales of utter despair and pain. Why would they want to, anyway? They've been living in their safe little homes, oblivious to all the suffering - and not caring about it even if they did hear a few of the stories smuggled under the barbed wire of the camps with 'dead' children. It's so wrong, but so true. My brother Władek made up a saying about everything that was going on, and he'd repeat it and repeat it until it made me mad - but now I could see it was the absolute truth. '_The people will not listen until they're put in your position.' _ Yes, that was right. If any of the stupid oafs who smirked at us when we were being herded into the ghetto, or kicked us and punched us just because we were a different religion to them, were put in my place and Halina's place; if they had to go through the camps and the monstrosities and the absurdity - they would listen to us. But they haven't been where we've been. They haven't seen what we've seen. And so they don't know what we know. It was wrong.

Bloodstains littered the ground beneath our feet. They reminded me of the camps, and I shuddered. Halina must have acquired a sense that knew exactly what I was thinking, because she shook violently too. I tightened my hold on her. She was too precious to me now. Too precious to let them do things to her again. She used to whisper to me through the stark diamond-shaped fencing that skirted around the edge of the camp we were in, separating men from women. I didn't know what they had to go through…until she took the duty of telling me. She had spoken urgently, I remember, almost as if she wanted to say the words and never let them pass her lips again. I think she was too scared to admit what they had done to her. She was worried they would break her poor, innocent spirit even more. I think I was worried too, but I still wanted to know. If she had been forced to do labour, like me, I guess I would've been thankful – I was sure that they would not beat the women like they beat us. But…it was worse than that. She had been sobbing when she finished admitting what they had done, and I think I was crying a bit too. It was awful, what they had done to her. They had taken a part of her away, and she would never have it back again. She said she felt she now belonged to them. I assured her that she was still her own person, and that she would never be theirs, despite everything they had done, but she wouldn't listen. If I were in her shoes, I don't think I'd have listened either.

Before the war, Papa always used to sigh at me whenever I got in trouble, and would proclaim loudly:

"Whatever am I going to do with you, Henryk?" This amused Władek greatly, and of course, he would spend no end mercilessly teasing me about the fact that I was constantly getting told off - and paying for it too - and he never did. And yes, Papa's punishments were tough, and relentless – but compared to what the Germans did...Papa's choices of discipline were like Heaven! He was never too harsh on me, but the Germans – well, they would beat people to within an inch of their life even if they just did something as small as appear sullen. I know because…it happened to me. The bruises are still throbbing.

Halina tensed and stopped suddenly, as if she had become a statue. I felt the blood drain from my face as I realised exactly where we were – we were standing on the remains of the street our apartment used to be on. It was rubble. I hate to admit it, but the only word I could think of at the time, to describe how I felt, was 'shit'. It's strange what a war can do. Before, I had had such a wide range of words inside my head, and I'm sure that I could have thought of something better than an obscenity – but the moment I saw what my home, my rock; my essence had become – I felt so utterly perplexed that my mind simply screamed a malediction out to me. For a long time, I just stood there, with my arm around my little sister, 'shit' resounding through my mind and out my ears and drifting slowly, slowly back home.


End file.
